YES, THE JAILS COMMISSION STORY IS STILL COMING. (COLD-RIDDEN & STILL WRITING.) BUT, IN THE MEANTIME……

LAPD DOESN’T PLAN TO USE UNMANNED COP ‘COPTERS TO LOOK IN YOUR PERSONAL BACKYARD……YET (AREN’T YOU RELIEVED?)

The LA Weekly’s Dennis Romero has the story:

So cops can now fly unmanned aircraft known as drones, which could be used to peek into your backyard and maybe even into your window at night.

So will the LAPD, a pioneer in the use of helicopters for law enforcement, soon be buzzing drones over your house as you smoke your favorite herb and become paranoid with fear?

Not likely, cops tell us:

The department doesn’t really the see the advantage of using unmanned aircraft and has no plans to test them out, at least for now.

In fact, the LAPD’s biggest concern, as it has been in the past, is having its manned helicopter units collide with drones.

But you can chillax.

The man in charge of the LAPD’s Air Support Division, Capt. William D. Sutton, told us the department doesn’t yet see much advantage in using drones. He thinks their safety record isn’t satisfactory yet:

” Back east a department had purchased one and lost control of it. It flew into a vehicle. We’re going to see how it goes.”

The FAA this week said that police departments could test out surveillance drones as long as they’re lighter than 4.4 pounds and fly below a 400 foot ceiling.

Given the city’s budget constraints, the LAPD is no hurry to buy drones, even if the drone-making capital of the nation is right here in Southern California…..

Whew! (For now.)

TUESDAY, CITY COUNCIL VOTES TO FOLD THE GENERAL SERVICES POLICE INTO THE LAPD (DESPITE NEWLY CHALLENGING NAMING ISSUES)

The Daily News Dakota Smith has the story. Here’s a clip:

The Los Angeles Police Department will absorb the General Services police and security officers under a plan approved Tuesday.

The City Council voted unanimously to consolidate the two agencies, transferring the 220 officers and security guards from General Services to the LAPD.

With the move, the LAPD will take on the work of General Services police: patrolling libraries, City Hall offices and other city facilities.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa backed the merger, including the plan in his 2012-2013 budget.

At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Councilman Mitch Englander urged his colleagues to support the consolidation plan.

“This isn’t a divorce, this is a marriage,” Englander said. “And I say, Mazel Tov.”

Currently, General Services’ sworn officers carry guns and patrol the city’s parks, libraries, and City Hall offices and grounds. The security guards protect the Los Angeles Zoo, Convention Center and other facilities.

Following the consolidation – expected to take place July 1 – both groups would fall within a new department called LAPD’s Security Services Division.

Yeah. About that name. “The LAPDSSD” looks a lot like the hissing/yowling noise my cat makes right before coughing up a hairball. Do not even think of messing with the LAPD brand. Not possible. Don’t go there. Really.

JERRY BROWN CHANGES MIND AND DECIDES TO NOT CLOSE YOUTH PRISONS AFTER PRESSURE FROM COUNTIES

This has long been a split decision for most who assessed it, WitnessLA included but, of late, the consensus has been to leave a few of California’s youth prisons open for the thousand or so of the state’s most troubled law-breaking kids, mainly because the counties don’t yet have the facilities or the programs to adequately serve these kids, may of whom have challenging mental and emotional health issues. It appears that Governor Jerry has now come around to this position.

Karne de Sa at the San Jose Mercury News has the story. Here’s a clip:

Responding to pressure from probation chiefs, district attorneys and prison guards, Gov. Jerry Brown has done an about-face on a revolutionary plan to shutter California’s youth prison system that was once the nation’s largest — and arguably the most notorious.

Just four months ago, a small section buried in the governor’s belt-tightening budget caused a massive stir in the juvenile justice world. With annual costs per inmate at about $200,000 and its population down 90 percent from peak years, the youth prison system should stop accepting serious and violent youthful offenders beginning next year, the Brown administration concluded.

For prison reformers who have long battled 23-hour confinement, education in cages and endemic violence, Brown’s Jan. 5 recommendation to eventually shift all the young inmates to county facilities was a startling and welcome move.

But in a revision of the budget released Monday, the governor now calls for upending his previous plan. The change came about after howls of protest from corrections officials, who flooded Sacramento budget hearings with demands that the Division of Juvenile Justice, or DJJ, remain open.

Counties, already struggling with an influx of adult prisoners shifted to their watch under other state budget reforms, simply couldn’t handle these most-difficult youths, they argued. Prosecutors warned that without state-run youth lockups, more juveniles would be sent to adult prisons.

The cost per kid, however, is nuts, and has everything to do with union issues, plus lack of economies of scale, thus has to be rethought. Put another way, it does not—I repeat, NOT—cost more than $200K to house, educate, give programs and health care to, and adequately guard these kids. Period. That money is going elsewhere. If you’d like to know where, I’d start by calling these folks.

by Taylor Walker

ANOTHER TRAGIC MURDER, ANOTHER 14-YEAR-OLD KID TRIED AS AN ADULT?

Los Angeles prosecutors plan to request that the 14-year-old who allegedly shot and killed his ICE agent father be tried as an adult. What is called a “fitness” hearing to determine whether the boy should be appropriately held to answer in an adult criminal justice system, will be held May 21st.

Parricide expert, Prof. Kathleen Heide, from the Dept. of Criminology at University of South Florida and Laurie Levenson, from at Loyola Law School, both weighed in on the issue on Larry Mantle’s Air Talk on KPCC.

IS LAPD CHIEF CHARLIE BECK PULLING PUNCHES ON POLICE DISCIPLINE? THE POLICE COMMISSION SAYS YES

The Los Angeles Police Commission opposed LAPD Chief Beck’s determination that Det. Arthur Gamboa operated within department regulations when he fatally shot a man in the back during a ruined drug bust. The Commission deemed Gamboa’s testimony and the evidence incongruent and added to their concern that Beck is not taking officer discipline seriously.

LA Times’ Joel Rubin has the story. Here’s a clip:

When the members of the Los Angeles Police Commission met behind closed doors last month to decide if a cop had been right to kill Dale Garrett, the two bullets in Garrett’s back raised serious concerns.

Det. Arthur Gamboa had insisted that Garrett left him no choice but to shoot when he pulled a knife and threatened to kill the detective during a botched drug bust. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and the commission’s own watchdog agreed, recommending the oversight board find that Gamboa’s decision to open fire was within department rules.

But for a majority of the five-person commission, errors and inconsistencies in Gamboa’s account, along with the fact that he shot Garrett in the back, could not be ignored. In a divided vote, the commission concluded the detective was not believable. The shooting, the panel ruled, violated the LAPD’s policy on when officers are justified in using lethal force.

With that decision, the shooting became the latest in a series of incidents in which Beck and his civilian bosses disagree on whether an officer’s decision to use deadly force was appropriate. These cases have given rise to a rare vein of tension between the chief and commissioners, who otherwise have heaped praise on Beck since he took over the department 2 1/2 years ago.

TO CLOSE OR NOT TO CLOSE CALIFORNIA’S LAST PRISONS FOR KIDS.

Barry Krisberg, Director of Research and Policy at UC Berkeley’s Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute has changed his stance on the Department of Juvenile Justice in the face of realignment to the county level, which he said would be far less capable of taking care of the most serious juvenile offenders.

Moreover, while the “realignment” strategy has saved some money, asthe DJJ population has been significantly reduced, the spending per kid has remained relatively unaffected due to inflexible union contracts and other expenses that seeme immune to cost cutting, even as the inmate population fell to a tenth of it what it once was.

KALW’s Sayre Quevedo interviewed Krisberg. Here’s a clip from what Dr. Krisberg had to say:

…For the thirty years I’ve been a critic of the California Youth Authority and the conditions of confinement and the problems there. But two things have changed in this situation. One is that the population is now only 10 percent of what it used to be. Many of the youth that we were advocating to get out of DJJ, are now out and in county programs and that’s gone generally pretty well. Now we’re down to a very small core of very troubled young people and so I think that people need to pay attention to the fact that these are not the youth who have been in the system in the past.

The second issue is that in the last eight years there have been significant improvements made—not enough, not as much as I would like. But one of the problems is that at the county level they’re at ground zero. My concern is that we’ve worked hard, we’ve developed policy and procedure, we’ve improved education and medical care, we’ve cut down on the use of force and isolation but at the county level they’ve done nothing. So it’d be going back to where we were eight years ago, very harsh conditions, very harsh practices, and having to start all over again.

Although nearly all of LA’s May Day demonstrators and LA’s police, did their respective jobs on Tuesday without causing grief for each other, there were a couple of exceptions.

There was for instance the fool kid in the first video above who cheap-shotted a 5′1″ 115 lb. LAPD officer in the back of the helmet with some kind of drum, the whack hard enough to dent the officer’s helmet, and send her to the hospital (mostly just to make sure all was well).

Then in video number two, a couple of other sense-challenged individuals slammed another group of LAPDs from the back with a wooden pallet. They appeared to do so for no discernible reason other than a large passel of the protesters were yelling “F*ck the po-lice,” so the pallet wielders decided that they would, F*ck with the po-lice, I guess.

Commander Andrew Smith, who was the department’s main spokesperson on the ground on May 1, sounded a bit on the tired side when I caught up with him on Wednesday. Still he was upbeat and said that—other than the two incidents—he felt that everything had gone really well, on both sides, protesters and police. “It was just a really long day,” he said.

We also talked about the difference between the LAPD that policed the May Day protests of 2012 and the LAPD that reacted to the Rodney King riots of 20 years ago.

“Somebody asked me recently about what had changed in the department since then,” he said. “Afterward I was thinking about it. And, really, the answer is, ‘Everything.’ Everything has changed in this department. And, as much as a lot of us hate to say it, I think it took an outsider to do it.

“Meaning Bill Bratton,” I said. “Plus the consent decree.”

Right. And the consent decree.

Which is what it will take to reform certain other law enforcement agencies I could mention—good leadership, the willingness to lop off some heads, metaphorically speaking, and perhaps a federal consent decree.

But that’s a conversation for another day.

IN THE MEANTIME, A LAST NOTE TO THOSE OCCUPIERS STILL UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT OF WHOM THEY ARE PROTESTING AGAINST: Hint: It isn’t the po-lice. Unless they are shooting at you unaccountably with less-than-lethal projectiles and flash-bangs, or whooshing you in the mouth with pepper spray, law enforcement is not the enemy. The cops are the 99 percenters too. They are you.

On April 29, 1992, I began the day worrying about the threat of gang violence, not city-altering conflagration that the afternoon’s news would bring.

As every local media outlet has been discussing all week , twenty years ago on Sunday, Los Angeles exploded in what is generally considered to be the worst civil disturbance of the 20th Century. But even before the four LAPD officers were acquitted by a Simi Valley jury, triggering a citywide spasm of violence that would kill 63 people, Los Angeles was already living through the deadliest period in its history, with homicides skyrocketing past the 2000 mark county-wide in 1991, and headed still higher in the first quarter of ‘92, with nearly 40 percent of the killings marked as gang-related.

It was one of those gang killings that had an initially skewing effect on the way I experienced the events of April 29, 1992.

At the time, LAPD Chief Daryl Gates’ reaction to what would come to be known as the decade of death in East and South LA, was to institute a clumsily designed and brutal policy he named Operation Hammer. The Big Blue Hammer, as it was sometimes known colloquially, consisted mainly of massive gang sweeps in which as many as a thousand young people were arrested at a time, with sometimes no more pretext than the kid had on a black Raiders’ jacket. The broad brush arrests resulted in a miniscule number of actual charges, which could have been better accomplished with normal police work. Yet they gave permission for lots of acts of deliberate humiliation and ongoing incidents of cop-administered beatings, most of which were never reported, since the mothers of the beat-up kids learned that the complaints went exactly nowhere. And still the homicides continued to rise. The Hammer’s main collateral effect was to drive a wedge between law enforcement and the communities that were most in need of the LAPD’s protection and service that would take years and two enlightened chiefs of police to undo.

In was into this climate that the verdicts were delivered.

At the time, I was spending most of my working hours reporting on gangs in the Pico Aliso housing projects of East Los Angeles, where I was researching a book on Father Greg Boyle, and on the six active street gangs who claimed territory within the mile-square boundaries of Pico-Aliso. This meant I was often in the projects late at night when shootings erupted, and I had frequently seen first hand the aftermath of an LAPD beat down that resulted in no arrest.

I had also been to an unhealthy number of funerals of kids I’d gotten to know and like.

On April 29, 1992, the afternoon that the verdicts in the Rodney King beating case were announced, I was on my way to the projects to talk to some homeboys whose lives I’d been tracking for the book, after which time I was going to pick up Father Greg at his office inside Dolores Mission Church, which was situated between the twinned housing projects, and then I’d accompany him on a series of errands, as I often did during the four years I all but bungee-corded myself to the priest’s ankle.

Entirely apart from the citywide storm that would break with staggering force before the day was out, it was already a perilous week in the Pico-Aliso projects: A few days before, a member of the East Coast Crips,—a smallish Crip set that was one of the six projects gangs—had been shot and killed by a member of one of the other projects gangs, The Mob Crew, or TMC, and retaliation was expected to be imminent.

The murder itself was already round two of a deadly game of tit-for-tat. It seemed that in the midst of an argument over some territorial issue or other, the dead boy, who had the unlikely street name of New York, had pulled out a gun and shot a TMC homeboy in the foot. Rumor had it that a second TMC homeboy had a gun trained on New York from a nearby apartment roof and fired a couple of warning shots, thus discouraging the Crip from shooting a second time. It was assumed that the foot-shot gangster, a baby-faced 16-year-old who would later go to work for Power 106 radio, or one of his homeboys, most likely the roof shooter, had tragically upped the ante by killing New York.

By this time, I’d been reporting on Father Greg and the various clusters of gang members for nearly two years, so I knew most all of the significant players in the gang world of Pico-Aliso, and had come to care about many of them, and their mothers, sisters, cousins, and little brothers, some of whom regularly tumbled in an out of my car like rowdy puppies. In other words, I had long ago lost most of my reportorial distance. In this case, although I had not known New York, who was just out of prison, I did know the two TMC teenagers in question, either one of whom I realized with dread could easily be New York’s killer, and could therefore also easily become the next victim in the projects’ latest escalating cycle of gang madness.

Thus it was that this other, much closer-to-hand threat of violence was most on my mind when, at 3:16 pm on Wednesday, April 29, I listened as KFWB all-news radio announced each one of the Simi Valley verdicts separately: Not guilty. Not guilty. Not guilty. Not guilty. I remember that the content of the announcement was momentarily confusing. How can one be found not guilty of something that the whole country saw one do over and over again on video? The radio announcer said that there might be unrest, which anybody living or working in South or East LA already knew. Yet, as I drove toward Dolores Mission to meet Greg, the likelihood of citywide violence still seemed a distant concern with the shadow of Pico/Aliso’s own potential unrest looming much nearer.

By the time I arrived at the church, a group of community mothers were gathered with the idea of marching to Parker Center to protest the King verdicts and asked if I would come with them. I declined explaining that I’d already promised to accompany the priest to the Dorothy Kirby Center, a therapeutic juvenile facility run by LA County probation in which around 70 kids were housed, and where Greg went to say mass every first Wednesday of the month.

I’d been to Kirby with Greg multiple times before, but this visit was markedly different. During the mass, the kids were oddly agitated. After the service ended, Greg made a habit of visiting various “cottages” in order to talk to kids individually. It was just before 7 pm when we reached the first cottage where we found all its occupants gathered in a single, jittery clump around the cottage’s television. Hearing us enter, the kids looked up briefly and seemed glad to see Greg, but their gazes were drawn quickly back to the TV where a news clip of a white man being pulled from the cab of a semi truck and horribly beaten by a bunch of young black men, was being replayed over and over in a violent, balletic series of images that careened across the screen in an eerie visual reverse of the tape of the King beating. Greg attempted conversation at each cottage, but the point of diminishing returns was reached quickly; the kids were too agitated, unable to light anywhere for long, even for him.

After Kirby we drove to a Jesuit retreat house in Azusa where Greg had managed to wangle temporary employment for two Pico/Aliso homeboys. Their work as assistant groundskeepers had reportedly gone well, but they were both dreadfully homesick so Greg promised to pick up the two and bring them back to L.A. for a short visit.

Once homeboys and priest were safely stashed in my car for the trip back to the projects it was nearly 9:00 p.m. As we neared Los Angeles, we were surprised when we hit a colossal traffic jam, which was our first inkling that something might truly have gone terribly wrong in the city. Squinting ahead, I saw that the sky was bright to the northeast of us and also to the south, with veils of smoke wafting across the night’s waning crescent moon. I hurriedly flipped on the radio and we learned what the rest of Los Angeles already knew.

When I finally dropped Greg and the two homies at the church parking lot, Pico/Aliso was quiet and dark, a seeming haven from the storm that was quickening everywhere else else. I would not learn until the next morning that, after I left the church, Greg and the homies had remained trapped inside the sanctuary after cars full of Crips showed up and proceeded to drive up and down Gless Street for hours, the dull shine of gun barrels visible out open car windows.

Ignorant of the soon-to-be menacing Crips, I occupied myself with the task of trying to figure out some kind of safe route home. To my right was Hollywood, where the palm trees had become fantastic torches lining the freeway with furious light, and causing the shutdown of the 101, which would have been my usual path back to Topanga Canyon, where I lived with my then-six year old son. To my left was South Los Angeles, which still seemed to be the epicenter. Plus an hour before, Mayor Tom Bradley had ordered the closing of many of the exit ramps on the Harbor Freeway and maybe some on the 10, so going south seemed unwise. Using the radio news as a guide, I decided to head west across the First Street Bridge, straight through the middle of downtown.

I saw the first sign of trouble at what was then the New Otani Hotel at First and Los Angeles Streets. Nearly all of its ground floor windows were smashed and there was fire damage—although, by the time I passed it, the rioters had moved on. Hoping for more up-to-date information than the radio was able to provide, I veered north on Los Angeles Street to the LAPD headquarters at Parker Center, which was protectively surrounded by a shoulder-to-shoulder string of two hundred or more police officers top-heavy with riot helmets, their order to guard the building while the rest of downtown LA was evidently on its own.

I pulled to the curb and yelled that I was looking for a route west. “Get over to Third Street,” one of the cops yelled back. Relieved, I took his suggestion and raced back along Los Angeles Street toward third. But the insurrection was a live thing now, which no one could track or predict. After swerving around first one and then a second set of street barricades, I rounded yet one more corner and ran smack into everything I was trying to avoid.

Up and down the intersecting streets in front of me as far as I was able to see, several hundred people raced and twirled in zigzag patterns across streets like whole teams of football running backs suddenly seized by mania.

The craziness was auditory as well as visual. Glass erupted in a musical clatter seemingly from every angle, sometimes close, sometimes father away. Some of the people had guns in their hands, and I heard gunfire, close by, but sporadic, the bullets spent, I remember hoping absently, more for effect than for injury. Lots of stores were extravagantly on fire, while flames only barely sequined the facades of others. Every single trashcan on the street was burning, which caused me to think stupidly of the only sensory analogue I had for what I was seeing, the movie Blade Runner.

I crept my car cautiously forward into the darting crowd hoping that, although I seemed to be the only vehicle on the road, if I kept moving steadily, I would simply become another part of the cacophonous wallpaper. As I drove, my hands clinging with white knuckled correctness to the ten and two o’clock positions on my steering wheel, my eyes the size of dinner plates, I wished desperately for a camera.

Now, of course, I always carry a camera with me, in the form of a cell phone, if nothing else. But then I was a narrative journalist, not a hard news reporter. Plus in those years, reporters didn’t usually take pictures. That was left up to the photo pros. Yet, that night as I threaded and swerved around the runners, I longed for some method other than memory with which to capture what I was witnessing.

I also longed to get home safely, a goal it still wasn’t yet clear I could accomplish. I didn’t feel frightened exactly. The intensity of the moment didn’t leave room for fear. But I wondered in passing if I should be afraid. After all, that Reginald Denny guy had been in a truck, and look what good it did him.

With that thought still lingering, I braked to a halt at one last downtown intersection clogged by running, shooting looters, and my gaze locked with that of a thirty-ish black man who was one of the gun-holding runners. The moment occurred as he passed in front of my car and stared curiously in at me through the windshield. Then, evidently seeing something in my expression of which I still refused to be cognizant, in a silent exchange that could have taken no more than a millisecond, the man communicated as clearly as if he’d spoken aloud to me with brief but consummate kindness: Keep going, his gaze said. You’re okay. This is not about you.

A minute or two later, I did make it through the chaos of downtown, then over to Olympic Blvd. to La Brea, south to the 10, then west to PCH, and north to Topanga, where I sent the baby sitter home and hugged my son longer than he thought was seemly.

For the next forty-eight hours in Los Angeles, everything stopped and everything was in motion. However, in Pico/Aliso, and most of the rest of East LA, there was no rioting, no looting. Although I knew that some people made forays into other areas of the city, most of the projects residents huddled together like a family riding out a hurricane. The gun toting, church-circling Crips of Wednesday night, stayed at home too, their grief and fury subsumed for a while by the larger collective grief and fury. More gang violence and more heartbreak was to visit the projects in the months to come, but for now anyway, there was pause.

On Thursday, I stayed close to home, checking in with Greg a couple of times during the day. But by Friday I could no longer bear what felt like the psychological remove of the West Side. I went back to the projects. The dusk ‘till dawn curfew that Mayor Tom Bradley had called was still in place, and the violence and destruction would continue in shuddering fits for a few more days. But by Friday night, everyone knew that the worst of the fever had broken and spontaneous barbecues bloomed like sudden wildflowers in front yards all over the projects. I made a big salad and, at the invitation of some of the projects mothers I knew the best, joined in one of them, grateful that I had a place that would welcome me for the much needed communal ritual.

LAPD SAYS IT WILL HAVE SEPARATE AREA FOR TRANSGENDERED INMATES IN POLICE LOCK-UP

Last Thursday night, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck announced a newly crafted, and hearteningly enlightened policy toward transgender people—including a separate LAPD lock-up, the first in the nation. The new policy takes a hugely significant step in healing the problem-laced relationship between the transgender community and the criminal justice system in general.

(According to a study by UC Irvine commissioned by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, nearly 60 percent of transgender inmates in California lock-ups reported being sexually assaulted by other inmates, a rate 13 times higher than for a random sample of the general inmate
population.)

The LA Times’ Sam Quinones has the story. Here’s how it opens.

Responding to incidents of violence against transgender arrestees, the Los Angeles Police Department plans to open a segregated lockup for biologically male and female suspects who identify themselves as members of the opposite sex, officials said.

By early May, a 24-bed transgender module will open at the LAPD women’s jail downtown, the first such police lockup in the nation, according to Capt. Dave Lindsay, the jail division commander.

“This is a major change,” Lindsay said. It will allow for “an environment that’s safe and secure, as there’s been a history of violence against transgender people.”

City jails are for holding people only until they are arraigned in court on the charges on which they were arrested, typically a maximum of three days; then they are transferred to the Los Angeles County Jail, run by the Sheriff’s Department. The county jail will not be affected by the changes.

Go, Chief Charlie. This is a very good thing.

HOWEVER, AFTER YOU READ THE TRANSGENDER STORY, READ THIS BY THE LAT’S JOEL RUBIN ABOUT HOW THE POLICE COMMISSION IS CRUCIALLY AT ODDS WITH PART OF BECK’S DISCIPLINE POLICY

SCOTUS WILL HEAR ARGUMENTS THAT THE FAIR SENTENCING ACT—REGARDING THE CRACK AND POWDER DISCREPANCY—SHOULD BE RETROACTIVE, AT LEAST IN PART

ON Tuesday the US Supreme Court will hear arguments regarding whether or not the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 should be, in any way, retroactive If you’ll remember, the FSA is the law that (mostly) rectified the horrific 1-100 sentencing discrepancy between the prison terms handed down for powder cocaine sales convictions and sentences for convictions for crack sales. (The FSA changed the ratio to 1-20-ish.) The problem is that the new law implied —but did not implicitly say— that it would retroactively apply to crimes committed before the act was passed—but sentenced after the act was passed.

The twinned cases of Dorsey v. the United States, and Hill v. the United States are about that retroactivity issue.

Lyle Denniston over at SCOTUSBLOG has a very complete rundown of the finer points of the cases and the law. While he may be a little on the wordy side for non-wonks, his post is quite fascinating and informative if you take the time.

Here are some clips:

Blacks more often got punished for buying or selling the “crack” or “rock” variety of cocaine, which can be easily processed into a smoked version; conviction carried a much heavier prison sentence. Whites more often got punished for dealing in the “powder” or “blow” version, which can be snorted; conviction carried a far more lenient sentence.

[Snip]

For cocaine, that [1986 Anti-Drug Abuse] Act required judges to punish an individual convicted of a crack crime 100 times more severely than one convicted of trafficking in the powder form. In other words, every gram of crack was treated as the same, for punishment purposes, as 100 grams of powder.

[The Fair Sentencing Act] adopted a ratio that works out to about 18 to 1, crack to powder. A crime involving 28 grams of crack would draw a five-year minimum sentence, as would a crime with 500 grams of powder. A crack crime with 280 grams would be sentenced to ten years, as would a powder crime with 5000 grams. The Justice Department has explained the choice of 28 grams as the bottom amount of crack for sentencing on the premise that wholesale distribution of crack usually involves one-ounce quantities — that is, close to 28 grams.

Although only one lawyer will appear Tuesday for the two Illinoisians, the lawyers for each have filed their own merits brief. The brief for Corey Hill (whose lawyer will be arguing) put its main emphasis upon congressional intent in 2010: “Once Congress completed its historic overhaul of crack sentencing policy,” the brief said, Congress “wanted those amendments to apply immediately….The clear implication….was that the new mandatory minimums should take effect rapidly so that the Guidelines would have a model against which to ‘conform’ and be consistent.”

[Snip]

The Dorsey-Hill cases almost certainly will revive within the Court the long-running dispute over how to read federal statutes — to stay focused only on their language, or to look at legislative history, too. If the Court were to use the former approach, it would seem that the Court-appointed amicus has the better of the argument. The 1871 law is quite specific in requiring Congress, if it wants a new criminal law to have retroactive effect, to say so explicitly; Congress did not do that in 2010. But if the Court were to take the latter approach, there is much that went on during the process of passing the 2010 law that suggests that Congress did want retroactivity to the extent being advanced by the government and counsel for the two Illinois men — not least, the removal of the anti-retroactivity provision from the bill.

BALTIMORE POLICE ABOUT TO JOIN OTHER DEPARTMENTS WHO VIDEOTAPE INTERROGATIONS

The Baltimore PD, which is the 8th largest department in the nation, plans to begin videotaping interrogations in serious cases like shootings and murders. Criminal justice advocates across the country have been pushing for the move due to the now recognized prevalence of false confessions in innocence cases. Baltimore PD’s dithering—and their determination to make the change—is emblematic of similar policy shifts taking place in agencies all over the U.S.

Justin Fenton of the Baltimore Sun has the story. Here’s a clip:

The department, the eighth-largest in the country, recently began using video as part of a series of reforms of its sex-offense unit. Now officials are exploring equipment options and the policy impact of videotaping homicide and shooting interrogations. Detectives are being trained on subtleties such as where to stand and how their demeanor will play to a jury.

I’m committed to doing this, and I have a bunch of really smart guys working on getting this done,” said police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III, who has studied videotaping since he was chief of detectives. “But it’s not as simple as going to Radio Shack and bolting a camera into the wall.”

[SNIP]

Hundreds of jurisdictions across the country now videotape interrogations, and it is required by law in several states and the District of Columbia. The shift has been spurred by increasing affordability, as well as by questions of coercion and false confessions as DNA testing has led to the release of scores of inmates.

In Harford County, the sheriff’s department says it has long recorded interviews in major cases and recently got funding to add interrogation rooms to neighborhood precincts.

“It’s pretty much a standard for progressive law-enforcement agencies,” Sheriff L. Jesse Bane said. “People are finding out that the things Hollywood portrays really don’t take place.”

STRANGE, IMPRACTICAL MARRIAGE FOR LAPD? OR CONVENIENT HOOK-UP?

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is expected to propose a merger between the LAPD and the General Services’ Office of Public Safety cops in his budget, to be presented Friday. The rather curious melding of the officers who guard libraries and courthouses with the LAPD may be a cost-efficient way for Villaraigosa to uphold his promise to add 1,000 officers to the LAPD ranks by the end of his mayoral term—or not.

Here’s a clip from the Daily News’ Dakota Smith’s report:

As part of his budget being released Friday, Villaraigosa is proposing to shift the Department of General Services’ Office of Public Safety into the Los Angeles Police Department, according to City Council members familiar with the proposal.

Under the proposal, some or all of the city’s 250 security officers and sworn officers who guard the city’s parks, zoo, and City Hall would move under the command of the LAPD.

City budget chief Miguel Santana is expected to release a report on the costs, advantages, and risks of moving the department to the LAPD next week.

Additionally, the LAPD is doing its own feasibility study on absorbing the department.

“There’s a lot of homework to do before this can occur,” said City Councilman Dennis Zine, adding he has questions about the plan.

For instance, Zine said the OPS and LAPD officers have different salaries and pension plans.

In any case, at this point, it’s far from a done deal.

The L.A. Times also reported on the issue.

CAN AN UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANT WOULD-BE LAWYER GET ADMITTED TO THE FLORIDA BAR?

Rafael A. Olmeda of the Sun-Sentinel has the intriguing story. Here’s a clip:

Can an immigrant without a green card get a Florida Bar card?

Aspiring lawyer Jose Godinez-Samperio, 25, a Tampa-area resident, is hoping the answer is yes.

A native of Mexico who entered the United States legally with his parents 16 years ago on a tourist visa, Godinez-Samperio is a graduate of the Florida State University College of Law, the valedictorian of the Armwood High School class of 2004, an Eagle Scout — and an undocumented immigrant.

The Florida Board of Bar Examiners, which grants membership to the Bar, has asked the state Supreme Court to determine whether it can accept someone who is not in the country legally. The Supreme Court flagged the case as “high profile” last week.

Similar cases are pending in NY and California.

Original illustration by Scott McPherson

it slipped my mind that today was Cesar Chavez Day. So since many are taking the day off (and, yes, many of us aren’t), the promised Part 2 of Aero Bureau will appear Monday, not today.

In the meantime, watch the hour-long PBS video on the Farm Worker’s Movement at the end of the post ( It reminded me about, among other things, all those years that no one I knew would have dreamed of eating table grapes. Even after the strike was over, it took a long time to learn to like them again. I imagine I was far from alone in that somewhat irrational post-strike reaction.)

POLICE UNION VERY UNHAPPY THAT SOME DEPARTMENT INSIDER LEAKED TO THE LA TIMES THE NAME OF THE OFFICER INVESTIGATED FOR RACIAL PROFILING

New LAPPL prez Tyler Izen wrote LAPD Inspector General Alexander Bustamante a strongly worded letter asking for an investigation into the matter.

“…the unlawful disclosure of the confidential information regarding any officer by unscrupulous self-serving individuals has reached a level of indecency so great that we will not stand by and remain silent,” he wrote.

(The full text is here.)

And, to remind you what we’re talking about, here’s an opening clip from Joel Rubin’s LA Times article.

A white police officer has been targeting Latino drivers for traffic stops because of their ethnicity, a Los Angeles Police Department investigation concluded — marking the first time the department has found that one of its officers had engaged in racial or ethnic profiling.

For decades, the question of profiling — “biased policing,” in LAPD vernacular — has bedeviled the department. Accusations that the practice was commonplace throughout the 1970s and ’80s alienated the LAPD from the city’s minority neighborhoods. And, despite dramatic reforms that have boosted the department’s image in recent years, complaints of profiling have persisted, with hundreds of officers being accused of bias each year. Until now, none of those complaints has been substantiated.

.

Of course, at least the LAPD’s probable Peace Officer Bill of Rights violator wasn’t a department captain who, in a fit of pique, blurted the existence of an IAB investigation against an LASD sergeant formerly under the captain’s command, all this in front of a very full and public board of supervisors meeting. Making matters worse, the captain failed to include in his blurt (that had a wild-eyed county attorney looking to be on the verge physically tackling him) the information that the charge had already been resolved in the sergeant’s favor—but instead inaccurately implied the exact opposite.

FBI SAYS IT DIDN’T REALLY MEAN THAT “SUSPEND THE LAW” THINGY IT HAD IN ITS COUNTER-TERRORISM BOOKLET

Wired Magazine’s Danger Room section has the not-terribly-cheering story. Here’s a clip:

The FBI once taught its agents that they can “bend or suspend the law” as they wiretap suspects. But the bureau says it didn’t really mean it, and has now removed the document from its counterterrorism training curriculum, calling it an “imprecise” instruction. Which is a good thing, national security attorneys say, because the FBI’s contention that it can twist the law in pursuit of suspected terrorists is just wrong.

“Dismissing this statement as ‘imprecise’ is a rather unsatisfying response given the very precise lines Congress and the courts have repeatedly drawn between what is and is not permissible, even in counterterrorism cases, over the past decade,” Steve Vladeck, a national-security law professor at American University, says. “It might technically be true that the FBI has certain authorities when conducting counterterrorism investigations that the Constitution otherwise forbids, but that’s good only so far as it goes.”

The reference to law-bending was noted in a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller from Sen. Richard Durbin that Danger Room obtained. When Danger Room asked for the original document, the FBI initially declined. On Wednesday, a Bureau spokesperson relented, but refused to say who prepared the document; how long it was in circulation; and how many FBI agents, analysts and officials received its instruction….

IN NEW YORK CITY A CIVILIAN OVERSIGHT BOARD GETS THE POWER TO PROSECUTE NYPD OFFICERS FOR MISCONDUCT

“Lawyers for the independent agency that investigates allegations of police abuse in New York have been given wide new powers to prosecute officers in misconduct cases under an agreement city officials reached on Tuesday,” writes Al Baker for the NY Times.

This is something that could be very useful to consider in LA. It involves both civilians and police officers.

REMEMBERING THE FIERCE AND GIFTED ADRIENNE RICH, AND THE FABULOUS EARL SCRUGGS

The New York Daily News has an unusually good send off for the enormously influential feminist poet, Adrienne Rich, who died this week.

And in this video from the PBS Newshour Judy Woodruff and Jeffrey Brown help us say goodbye to both Rich and Earl Scruggs, who also died this week.

“He made you stop in your tracks,” said Bela Fleck of the brilliant and beloved banjo innovator Scruggs.

Yep. That he did.

And here he is doing it again— with those he inspired.

And now back to Cesar Chavez.

The LA Times reports that, Wednesday afternoon, in a meeting with the paper’s editorial board and reporters, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck expressed what he saw as the need for some kind of driver’s licensing for California’s undocumented residents.

While Beck’s thoughts on the topic are exceedingly practical and steeped in…oh, I don’t know…logic and facts, his stand will likely illicit a firestorm of criticism. Nevermind that undocumented people are driving anyway—to get to work and drive their kids to school—thus licensing our residents, legal or not, will make us all safer.

In any case, here’s what the Times reports about what Beck had to say:

“My personal belief is that they should be able to” have licenses, Beck said in response to a question during a meeting with Times’ reporters and editorial writers. “The reality is that all the things that we’ve done – ‘we’ being the state of California – over the last 14, 16 years have not reduced the problem one iota, haven’t reduced undocumented aliens driving without licenses. So we have to look at what we’re doing. When something doesn’t work over and over and over again, my view is that you should reexamine it to see if there is another way that makes more sense.”

Beck said he does not believe licenses for illegal immigrants should be identical to regular ones. Saying “it could be a provisional license, it could be a nonresident license,” he acknowledged that state officials would have to find ways to address widely held concerns that offering licenses to people in the county illegally could make it easier for terrorists go undetected.

For Beck, however, such concerns are outweighed by what he said would be improved safety on California roads and the ability of police to identify the people they encounter. “Why wouldn’t you want to put people through a rigorous testing process? Why wouldn’t you want to better identify people who are going to be here?” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense to me. And we could increase safety on the roads. When you make things illegal you cause a lot of other things by chain reaction.”

What he said.

Thank you, Chief Charlie.

Chief of Police Charlie Beck’s proposed changes to the LAPD’s automobile impound policy will be voted on by the Los Angeles Police Commission on Tuesday. It is pretty much preordained that the change will pass through the commission without a hitch.

While the new policy is all but a done deal, what remains open to question— according to critics of the change—is whether or not the proposed new interpretation of the LAPD’s policy is legal. City attorney Carmen Trutanich’s office has told the chief, that the change is not only permissible under the law, it is more correct than the old procedure.

However, according to a statement released Monday afternoon by the LAPPL (the LAPD union) California’s Legislative Counsel says it’s not legal. (The Legislative Counsel is what CA lawmakers and others use to sort out such matters.)

(And, indeed, that’s what the letter from William Chan, Deputy Legislative Counsel, says.)

For those of who have somehow missed this controversy, here’s the deal. Last Spring LAPD Chief Charlie Beck announced that the department was changing its rules for impounding cars of unlicensed drivers at sobriety checkpoints.

The old policy requires that the cops impound a car for 30 days if it is being driven by an unlicensed driver, whether the driver has been drinking or not. For years immigrant rights advocates have rightly pointed out that the policy cuts unfairly against undocumented immigrants, who often need cars to go to work and take their kids to school, but are prohibited from getting a driver’s license under California law. (Thank you, Arnold Schwarzenegger.)

Bothered by the fact that the impound procedures scooped up and penalized so many otherwise-law abiding undocumented residents, Chief Beck made a change that allows the unlicensed driver to call a licensed driver to pick up the car, as long as driver A has ID and car insurance. The unlicensed driver also cannot have caused an accident, or have prior conviction for the same offense. Otherwise the full 30 days kicks in.

Critics of the policy point out that unlicensed drivers are significantly more likely to be involved in fatal crashes and more likely to drive drunk and other reckless behaviors than are validly-licensed drivers.

Of course, all this would be a moot point if undocumented folks were allowed to get drivers’ licenses— then only the unlicensed scofflaws, who are so statistically dangerous, would be at risk of impounds. But, hell, why be practical? (I’m talking to you, California state legislature.)

Okay, back to the question raised in the beginning: is the change legal or not?

Beck makes it clear he has accepted the opinion of City Attorney Trutanich, whose reading of the law centers around the fact that there are two dueling sections in the CA Vehicle code, one of which mandates a 30-day impound, (that costs the poor car owner about $1,300 or more in fees)—while the other Vehicle Code Section allows a car to be released the next day, with proper documentation, (at an approximate cost of $250). Beck explains that he is perfectly within the law when ordering his officers to enforce the second, less onerous section, rather than the first.

The Legislative Analyst says, to the contrary, that the local cops can’t pick and choose between the two Vehicle Code sections; that the one that specifies the mandatory 30-day rule for those who have never had a California DL, legally holds sway. (If you’re not put to sleep by all this and are curious, you can look it up here. The relevant opinion is in the last full paragraph at the bottom of page 6.)

Beck counters that a number of court decisions back his and the City Attorney’s reading of the matter:

Commonly referred to as the Community Caretaking Doctrine, the courts have determined that the decision to impound any vehicle should be based on the totality of circumstances and must be reasonable and in the furtherance of public safety. Statutory authority alone is not sufficient to deprive someone of their vehicle.

In any case the commission votes today and, barring any force majeure, the chief’s proposal will pass.

UPDATE: Blogger Ron Kaye has found an interesting twist on the City Attorney’s opinion on the impound issue. It seems that civil rights attorneys in a federal lawsuit filed in behalf of undocumented immigrants who had their cars impounded for 30 days, argued that the cops had no right to do all this impounding, and to back up their claim, they cited the aforementioned Community Caretaking Doctrine. [See Above], Mr. Trutanich’s office countered that, according to previous decisions upheld by the 9th Circuit the police could absolutely impound the cars of drivers who never had a license, that the Community Caretaking Doctrine did not apply.

So which is it?

AND IN OTHER LAW ENFORCEMENT NEWS—-THE SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT IS HOPING TO IMPLEMENT A NEW 2-TRACK CAREER SYSTEM THAT ALLOWS SOME DEPUTIES TO NOT HAVE TO SERVE YEARS IN THE JAILS

The sheriff’s department’s insistence that all deputies have to work the jails for their first years out of the LASD academy has long been a source of criticism for reformers, yet the department has resisted change. Now, it seems that, Sheriff Baca is embracing the notion of a two-track career system—parole OR custody, with custody duty offering a fast track to promotion.

Ari Bloomekatz and Robert Faturechi have the story for the LA Times.

AND SOME GOOD NEWS: AS EXPECTED, THE TRUANCY FINE ISSUE MOVED OUT OF COMMITTEE AT THE CITY COUNCIL

Rick Orlov of the Daily News/Contra Costa Times has lots of the details.

School Board prez, Monica Garcia, approved the move.

DID RADIO SHOW THIS AMERICAN LIFE MOVE APPLE TO SEND OUTSIDE INSPECTORS TO FOXCONN?

On Monday, in response to a growing upset from its devoted customers, Apple announced that it had asked an independent inspecting entity to assess conditions at Foxconn and the other main factories where our shiny new i-things are made.

The outcry has been building for a while, but many believe the turning point was the January 6, 2012, brilliant and devastating broadcast by NPR’s This American Life about the Foxconn plant.

By the end of last month, the NY Times followed up with its own affecting report on the awful conditions. But it was the amazing Mike Daisy’s adaptation for TAL of his one-man show on the topic, combined with the TAL staff’s own follow-up—from which there was no going back—especially when, a few days later, there were horrifying reports of a threatened mass suicide among Foxconn workers.

You really are missing something if you don’t listen to the podcast.

May Apple’s audit genuinely stimulate change.

It wasn’t your usual book party.

For one thing, Monday night’s book launching event for civil rights lawyer Connie Rice’s new memoir, Power Concedes Nothing, was held at the LAPD’s headquarters, in the over-lit Compstat room, no less—i.e. the room where the cops go to hear a rundown on the latest crime statistics and ‘crime mapping.”

Moreover, the party was hosted by LAPD Chief Charlie Beck—who seemed mildly surprised to find himself in the book party hosting business. (Can you think of another instance where LA’s Chief of Police threw a book party? I can’t either. Go, Chief Charlie! Perhaps this could be the start of a new LA event trend: Law enforcement and literature.)

And then, of course, there’s the fact that the book details, among other things, the years that Rice spent suing the Los Angeles Police Department on a regular basis—and usually winning.

Still, Connie’s suing-the-LAPD days are now mostly in the past, and the mood in the Compstat room on Monday night was so upbeat it sometimes bordered on love fest-y. (As you’ll see from the rough snippets of iPhone videos above.)

Those in attendance were a mix of law enforcement and city government types, plus a smattering of criminal justice-leaning authors and journalists—nearly all of whom passed up the red and white wine for glasses of fizzy water. (Helpful party tip: Always drink less than the cops in the room.) U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte, showed up, as did City Controller Wendy Greuel, and LAPD command staff types like Deputy Chief Pat Gannon of South Bureau, and department spokesperson, Commander Andrew Smith (who was the LAPD guy you saw most often on TV throughout the whole LAPD/Occupy thingy.)

Journalist/authors Joe Domanick, Jesse Katz, and Jon Weiner, made appearances, as did Christine Pelisek from the Daily Beast, KPCC’s Frank Stoltz, KCET’s Judy Muller, the LA Times’ Pat Morrison, Sue Horton, Susan Brenneman and Deborah Vankin.

Among the others who stood around book-buying, appetizer-munching and gossiping were Police Commission head, John Mack, LA Gang Czar Guillermo Cespedes, Gerry Chaleff, who used to administer the federal consent decree for the LAPD but now has been appointed by Chief Beck as the Special Assistant for Constitutional Policing—meaning he’s supposed to be the guy tasked with making sure that LAPD officers don’t go around violating anybody’s Constitutional rights, and community activists, like Alfred Lomas, of LA Gang Tours.

City Councilman Tom LaBonge offered the night’s weirdest compliment to Rice, when in a moment of unchecked effusiveness after presenting her with an honorific city proclamation, he leaned into a microphone and told her, “You remind me of William Mulholland!”

(In case you’ve forgotten, Mulholland was the ultra powerful 1920’s era head of the Department of Water and Power on whom the John Huston-played villain of the movie Chinatown, Noah Cross Hollis Mulwray, was supposed to have been, in part, based.*) After Police Commission head John Mack began looking meaningfully at the City Councilman, and making subtle “cut it” motions, LaBonge tried to clarify things by shouting, “Forget Chinatown! Everybody drinks water.” Or something to that effect. Then he wisely divested himself of the microphone.

Still, everyone seemed to take LaBonge’s outburst as a quirky representation of the pleasant ebullience that characterized the night.

The cheery mood may have, in some ways, had to do with the fact that, unlike many book parties, where the point is to support (or meet) the writer, on Monday night, in addition to coming to support Connie, most everyone seemed to be really anxious to read Rice’s book—if they hadn’t already.

It is, as the subtitle says, “one woman’s quest for social justice in America….”—meaning it is a personal account, told through the lens of Rice’s specific experience and perceptions. Yet, much of it is also a book about certain events in Los Angeles in the last few years that many of those in the room felt they had, in some way had a part, or at the very least lived through and cared very much about—things like the battle to transform the LAPD and the struggle to get a handle on the gang violence that was corroding the emotional health of many LA neighborhoods.

In other words, they—we—think and hope that Connie’s book will add a new valuable puzzle piece to the communal puzzle that is the unfolding history of Los Angeles—a history that all of us get to claim.

PS: I’ve not yet read Connie’s book (as I just got it Monday night) but, like the rest, I’m looking forward to doing so. I’ll report back to you here when I do.

NOTE: I’LL HAVE MUCH NEWSIER NEWS TOMORROW, AND THEN A NEW JAILS/LASD STORY LATE IN THE WEEK.

NOTE 2: I hopelessly bollixed up the Chinatown characters when I first posted this. According to the zillion essays analyzing Robert Towne’s amazing script, Huston’s character Noah Cross plus Cross’s business partner in the film, Hollis Mulwray, collectively represented William Mulholland. (And many of us have eyed the DWP with suspicion ever since.)

WLA STORY ON UNDERSHERIFF PAUL TANAKA GETS MORE SHERIFF’S DEPUTIES AND SUPERVISORS TO COME FORWARD
The 3rd part of WitnessLA’s Dangerous Jails series by the very excellent Matt Fleischer has caused more LASD insiders –many still working now for the department—to come forward with new information. “We want a department we can be proud of,” said one supervisor I spoke with Thursday night.

Yep. Us too. So please keep reaching out with your stories.

MAYOR CAN’T KEEP STORY STRAIGHT ON BIG BUCKS SETTLEMENT DEAL WITH OUSTED HACLA CHIEF RUDY MONTIEL

Kevin Roderick at LA Observed caught these dueling stories.

And, as the mess gets ever worse, we learned Thursday night from the LA Times that the interim chief was just asked to resign too. (Thankfully, no word on a giant golden parachute for this guy though).

Meanwhile, So Cal Connected, which has owned this story, keeps up the pressure, along with Controller Wendy Greuel.

LAPD USING DOWNTOWN PRIVATE SECURITY FIRM TO HELP POLICE OCCUPY PROTESTORS?

The LA Weekly’s Dennis Romero reports that, yes, as a matter of fact, the LAPD has used private security guards in some of its Occupy enforcement, but that it’s not typical. (Good thing, because it’s a sort of cringe-making notion.)

Anyway, read the story. Here’s how it opens.

In video of a police confrontation with Occupy L.A. protesters outside a Bank of America branch downtown over the weekend a few private security guards are seen, batons-in-hand, helping the LAPD form a skirmish line.

In fact officers can be seen pushing security guards into strategic positions as they face off against the so-called 99-percenters. The security employees push people back with batons and aim the business ends of the weapons at citizens. At least one guard even appears to participate in the arrest of demonstrator Anthony Loscano.

What gives? Did the LAPD just deputize a group of civilians? LAPD Lt. Andy Neiman tells the Weekly:

I have no idea why they were with us. Typically we do not integrate and mix resources when we’re in a tactical situation like that because of training issues and stuff like that.

These aren’t just run-of-the-mill security guards though. They’re the notorious “shirts,” employees of downtown’s business improvement districts, organizations that band together to increase security, clean up trash and lobby the city for improvements….

PS: Romero and his colleagues at the The Weekly’s Informer blog, Simone Wilson and Gene Maddaus, have been very much on top of things with their Occupy coverage, so keep an eye on them as the stories continue to unfold.

A WAR ON WOLVES?

In Thursday’s LA Times, sociology professor and author J. William Gibson has an op ed about what he calls The New War on Wolves. In it he gives up to date wolf killing and population stats for the gray wolves that were removed last spring from the endangered species list. (If you remember, the wolves weren’t delisted by the Department of the Interior, but by Congress (that notoriously knowledgeable group of wildlife biologists) that managed to get enough votes for the delisting provision only by attaching it as a rider to a must pass budget package last April.

Gibson explains the results—and also attempts to explain the the absolute blood lustt that seems to motivate certain hunters when it comes to killing Canis Lupus—an enmity that is not present in the attitudes toward other large predators like mountain lions and grizzlies.

Here’s how the essay opens:

As of Wednesday, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game reported that 154 of its estimated 750 wolves had been “harvested” this year. Legal hunting and trapping — with both snares to strangle and leg traps to capture — will continue through the spring. And if hunting fails to reduce the wolf population sufficiently — to less than 150 wolves — the state says it will use airborne shooters to eliminate more.

In Montana, hunters will be allowed to kill up to 220 wolves this season (or about 40% of the state’s roughly 550 wolves). To date, hunters have taken only about 100 wolves, prompting the state to extend the hunting season until the end of January. David Allen, president of the powerful Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, has said he thinks hunters can’t do the job, and he is urging the state to follow Idaho’s lead and “prepare for more aggressive wolf control methods, perhaps as early as summer 2012.”

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead recently concluded an agreement with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to save 100 to 150 wolves in lands near Yellowstone National Park. But in the remaining 80% of the state, wolves can be killed year-round because they are considered vermin. Roughly 60% of Wyoming’s 350 wolves will become targeted for elimination.

What is happening to wolves now, and what is planned for them, doesn’t really qualify as hunting. It is an outright war…..

Read the rest.

By the way, as those longtime WLA readers know, I am not the least emotionally objective on the issue of wolf hunting in the U.S. In Montana, I’ve observed wolves in the wild with biologists, and been with other biologists when they’ve tracked radio collared wolves from the air. My son and I shared our home and lives for 16 and a half years with a wolf hybrid, the late great Loup-Loup. Now Lily-the 15 month old rescue wolf dog is at my feet as I type.

Yet, I realize that—practically speaking— predator species like the wolf have to be managed and, as much as I hate it, that sometimes includes hunting. But so much of what drives this issue is counterfactual and just plain ignorant. Yet it’s such a hot button topic that politicians have kowtowed to it.

I am at least thankful that, as Gibson reports, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has had the good sense to work out some kind of nominal protection for the wolf packs in and around Yellowstone Park, thus protecting the Yellowstone Wolf Project, started in 1994, which is unique in all the world, but was in part destroyed in 2008 when wolf hunting was, at first, clumsily reopened.

60 MINUTES ADDS A LEGAL ANALYST TO ITS ROSTER

Evidently with the departure of the late Andy Rooney, CBS’s 60 Minutes felt it now has room for an analyst who….you know…analyzes things, that, like, matter. So they’ve added legal analyst Andrew Cohen to the mix. This seems like a good thing.

SUPREMES HEAR MONTANA’S WHO-OWNS-THE-RIVERS DISPUTE

The AP has a good report on it. (As does the PBS Newshour actually.)

Here’s a clip from Mark Sherman and Matt Volz writing for the AP.

A Supreme Court dominated by Easterners tried to make sense Wednesday of a Western water dispute.

The court heard arguments in a lawsuit between a power company and the state of Montana over who owns the riverbeds beneath 10 dams sitting on three Montana rivers.

The state says it’s owed more than $50 million in back rent and interest from the company, PPL Montana.

For an answer, the court is looking back as far as the travels of Lewis and Clark more than 200 years ago.

The outcome could affect property rights, public access and wildlife management along Montana’s rivers, as well as those in other states.

The power company is appealing a Montana Supreme Court ruling that the state owns the submerged land beneath the dams. The decision turned in large part on that court’s findings that the three rivers were navigable when Montana became a state, despite the presence of significant waterfalls on two of the waterways.

The justices were dealing with unfamiliar issues in an area without much in the way of prior decisions to guide them.

Justice Samuel Alito, from Trenton, N.J., repeatedly asked where to turn for help.

“I’m not a sailor,” said Bronx-born Justice Sonia Sotomayor, explaining that she’s not especially conversant in nautical terminology.

Sotomayor was trying to figure out whether it matters in deciding on navigability how far someone has to go to get around a waterfall….

A decision is expected by June.